Is it possible to marry the wrong man? Author Susanne Dietze answers the question in her new release, My Heart Belongs in Ruby City, Idaho: Rebecca’s Plight.

Blurb:

Is it possible to marry the wrong man?

Rebecca Rice was looking forward to a quiet life and a full stomach by becoming mail-order bride to her shopkeeper intended, Mr. Fordham—until the Justice of the Peace calls him Thaddeus, not Theodore, proceeded by the title Deputy. Rebecca would never marry a lawman like her father, so an annulment seems in order—and fast, since Rebecca’s true intended is impatient to claim her as his own. But when the legalities take longer than expected, Rebecca wonders if Tad Fordham wasn’t the right husband for her all along….

Excerpt:

Rebecca’s boots seemed nailed to the dirt until the quartet of criminals mounted their horses. Then, the moment they disappeared down the sagebrush-scattered hill, she almost fell, crouching to gather and letters. Thank you, God.

Mr. Kaplan, the coachman, retrieved her reticule. The tiny purse she’d embroidered with pink peonies dangled off his wrist, an amusing sight, but Rebecca couldn’t muster the strength to laugh.

“Those must be important.” He pointed at the letters.

“They are.” She brushed a clot of dirt from one of the envelopes. There, now she could read the return address: Theodore Fordham, Ruby City, Owyhee County, Idaho Territory. “They’re from my intended. I’m on my way to Ruby City to make his acquaintance.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. Why not just tell Mr. Kaplan every embarrassing detail, like how she’d advertised in a newspaper for a husband and Mr. Fordham had answered, and in his fifth missive he’d proposed and she’d agreed? Mortified, she scurried to stuff her petticoat back into her valise.

If the news that she was about to marry a man she’d never met shocked the driver, however, he had the grace not to show it. Instead, he secured her trunk to the coach again. “Sorry we were set upon like that. This can be a wild land in every way, ma’am. Best you know that afore you swap vows.”

Wild land perhaps, but she’d not be marrying a wild man.

Rebecca couldn’t repress a smile, thinking of the quiet life Theodore described in his letters, a life of safety in the cozy, warm rooms above his mercantile, where he made a sound living selling goods to the miners who flocked here by the score.

A life, he admitted, that could seem boring, with the same tedious routine day after day, returning to the same hearth every night after a full day’s work.

She grinned as she climbed back into the coach. Boredom sounded wonderful.

Susanne Dietze began writing love stories in high school, casting her friends in the starring roles. Today, she’s the award-winning author of over a dozen historical romances who’s seen her work on the ECPA and Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller Lists for Inspirational Fiction. Married to a pastor and the mom of two, Susanne lives in California and enjoys fancy-schmancy tea parties, genealogy, the beach, and curling up on the couch with a costume drama and a plate of nachos.